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Countdown to 2021: Austin FC news for August 2019

We bring you the biggest Austin FC stories of the month including important news, speculation, and the hottest links on the interwebs.

August 2019

Austin FC brings aboard four new owners. The Austin FC ownership group grew exponentially thanks to new local investors Eddie Margain, Matthew McConaughey, Marius Haas, and Bryan Sheffield. Their full bios are on AustinFC.com.

Importantly, these investments represent a huge cash infusion that the club can use for player acquisition, hiring staff (a general manager?), and future facilities. In addition, international star McConaughey adds a significant boost to the Austin FC brand, attracting his fans outside of the soccer world.

“State of the Stadium” address gives update and groundbreaking date. We’ll cut to the chase—Monday, September 9 is the official day of the groundbreaking ceremony. Austin FC owners and front office, city council members, and even MLS commissioner Don Garber will be on hand to mark the momentous occasion.

Construction will take 18 months and the grand opening is expected to be April 2021, if there’s no delays. That’ll be approximately month after the 2021 season starts for the MLS, so expect Austin FC to play its first few matches away.

Two Oak Ventures president Dave Greeley, along with construction managers from Gensler and Austin Commercial, addressedthe stadium environs,including the green space and parking (835 parking spaces). They referred to the stadium and the land around it as a “soccer park”—likely to be in the official name once sponsor naming rights have been secured. A full transportation plan is in the works to make sure 20K+ fans can get in and out of the soccer park on match day.

Partnership formed with Lonestar Soccer Club. Fulfilling its agreement with the City of Austin, Austin FC will offer financial and coaching assistance to LSC’s Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) as well as its girls and boys U.S. Soccer Developmental Academy (USDA).

It’s also important to note that Lonestar Boys DA teams have been invited to train with Austin FC Academy teams at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School. If you saw the U-14 Austin FC Academy roster, you’ll notice a majority of the players come from Lonestar.

With this new partnership, we see the Lonestar Boys DA program completely merging with Austin FC Academy in the next fews years—LSC will simply not be able to keep a competitive DA program with so many of its DA players going to Austin FC.

Coming Up

Stadium Groundbreaking has circled September 9, 2019 as the date shovels will fly. Austin FC team owners, front office, media, and fans will be on hand for the kick off ceremony to begin construction of the stadium at McKalla Place.

Training Facility for Austin FC to be revealed in coming months. We don’t know where it’ll be, but word is the St. David’s Performance Center—as it’ll be known—will be announced in the fall 2019.

General Manager/Sporting Director of Austin FC will be the next big hire now that Josh Wolff has been named head coach. According to theExtratime podcast, a GM with international experience, especially with ties to Mexico, would complement Wolff’s expertise of players in the U.S. According to the team, the search is ongoing right now. We expect an announcement in late 2019/early 2020.

Season Ticket Pricing can’t come soon enough. With stadium construction starting and a fan Experience Centeropening, we expect sales agents from Austin FC to start calling deposit holders in late 2019/early 2020 to begin taking membership orders. Doing our part to fuel the speculation of ticket prices we looked at season tickets costs for other big time sports in Austin.

Published by Troy Bryant

Troy Bryant is from Austin and attended The University of Texas. You can usually find him at Veracruz All Natural in a PSG jersey or at home watching the MLS. C'est la vie.
View all posts by Troy Bryant